The laundry list of organizations — Texas Democratic Party, Republican Party of Texas, Attorney General’s office, minority groups suing the state — have finalized their agreement over extending the filing deadline until Monday, December 19 at 6p.m. …

With the Legislature’s redistricting maps tied up in Washington D.C. and the court drawn interim maps for the 2012 election, temporarily put aside by the U.S. Supreme Court — the center of attention in the Texas redistricting case has once again returned to San Antonio, where a three judge panel will hear arguments Tuesday morning about what to do about the state’s filing deadlines and primary date. …

Just a couple of days after Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott announced that the state had hired former Solicitor General Paul Clement (at a rate of $520 per hour), the Mexican American Legislative Caucus announced it had brought its own legal heavyweight on board, Stanford Law Professor Pamela Karlan (pay not disclosed). …

The only Democratic-drawn congressional redistricting map to see the light of the day so far will never make it through a GOP-dominated Texas Legislature, its author conceded Thursday, although he maintains that the Voting Rights section of the U.S. Justice Department and the courts could be a different story. State Rep. Marc Veasey, a Forth […] …

The House and Senate had planned simultaneous passage of their respective redistricting bills this morning with the doors of both chambers open so the two presiding officers could see each other gavel …